Impact of earlier Shuttle accidents

What impact would the historical STS accidents occurring earlier have?

Say a Challenger or Columbia type accident in 1982/83 and a Columbia or Challenger type accident in 1987/88.
 
a early Challenger type accident had delay the program
in 1982 the Test flight of Shuttle, the Astronaut were in space suit on ejector seat,
they had good chance to escape this.
a Improved Shuttle would launch around 1984 with only 4 men in spacesuits on ejector seat

Why ?
in early 1980s the USAF neede the Shuttle for military mission
they build a Shuttle launch site in Vandenberg AFB until 1986
then happend Challenger accident, USAF moved back on Titan-III rockets

and 1988?
STS-26 was next flight after 1986 Challenger
a Columbia type accident had surely kill the program under Reagan Administration

so wat next ?
NASA do no more manned spaceflight and USAF gets a Manned program under SDI ?
is a possibility...
 
Why ?
in early 1980s the USAF neede the Shuttle for military mission
they build a Shuttle launch site in Vandenberg AFB until 1986
then happend Challenger accident, USAF moved back on Titan-III rockets

Would this get high priority as a USAF programme??

In 1980, the Air Force contracted TRW to develop a low-cost booster configuration that would have a payload lift capability equal to the maximum capacity of the Space Shuttle. TRW took the original 1969 study that had been accomplished for NASA, which proposed a family of simple pressure-fed boosters, and updated it to be consistent with 1981 technology and cost. The result was an unmanned launch vehicle called the Low Cost Shuttle Surrogate Booster (LCSSB).

The LCSSB configuration was very similar to the original baseline vehicle in the 1969 NASA study. The booster had three pressure-fed stages, with a first-stage thrust of 30.25 million Newtons (6.8 million pounds). The first stage used four engines, each with a thrust of 7.56 million Newtons (1.7 million pounds). These four engines were identical to the second-stage engine, except that the first-stage engines had a higher chamber pressure and an expansion ratio of 6:l (for sea-level/low-altitude operations), compared with the second-stage engine expansion ratio of 31:l (for high-altitude/vacuum operations). Keeping the designs of the first- and second-stage engines essentially the same would have kept development costs down. The booster had a payload capacity to low earth orbit of 29,756 kilograms (65,600 pounds) when launching due east from Cape Canaveral. When launching into a 90-degree polar orbit, the LCSSB had a lift capacity of 23,178 kilograms (51,100 pounds). The system had a launch cost for production vehicles of $59.2 million per launch (including all launch processing and support costs). This equated to a cost of $1,989 per kilogram ($901 per pound) to LEO, assuming an easterly launch (see table 9).

Under Secretary of the Air Force Pete Aldridge encountered a storm of opposition from NASA and some members of Congress when he sought funding in the mid-1980s (pre-Challenger) for a small buy of Titan complementary expendable launch vehicles to augment the Shuttle fleet. It is therefore not surprising that the concept for the LCSSB, formally proposed one month after the first successful Shuttle flight, ended up going nowhere.
 
Would this get high priority as a USAF programme??

In 1980, the Air Force contracted TRW to develop a low-cost booster configuration that would have a payload lift capability equal to the maximum capacity of the Space Shuttle. ...
The result was an unmanned launch vehicle called the Low Cost Shuttle Surrogate Booster (LCSSB).

Yes its Possible

but there also those proposal:

Barbarian heavy Launch rocket for
The Zenith Star space-based chemical laser missile defence weapon
build from parts of Titan III-C rockets
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/barianmm.htm

USAF "Space Fighter" concept was very popular in begin 1980s
how they called it "Trans-Atmospheric Vehicle" TAV
or "Air-Launched Sortie Vehicle", ALSV
(Mini Shuttles launch from Boeing 747 or C-5)
the DARPA "Space Cruiser" launched by a submarine
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/spauiser.htm

and Black Horse
 
I found this

STS-27 Mission in 1988 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-27
second mission after Challenger
Shuttle Atlantis launch DoD Lacrosse 1 (radar reconnaissance) satellite

about 85 seconds into the flight, something hitting the orbiter
damage over 700 damaged tiles, one lost.

A review panel investigating the damage found that the most probable cause was ablative insulating material from the right-hand solid rocket booster nose cap hitting the orbiter about 85 seconds into the flight.

i think this was first almost Columbia type accident
were ice brakes of Fuel Tank and hitting the headshield

here we have interesting WI
second flight after Challenger and Atlantis breaks apart during reentry over Texas 1988
 
I found this

STS-27 Mission in 1988 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-27
second mission after Challenger
Shuttle Atlantis launch DoD Lacrosse 1 (radar reconnaissance) satellite

about 85 seconds into the flight, something hitting the orbiter
damage over 700 damaged tiles, one lost.

here we have interesting WI
second flight after Challenger and Atlantis breaks apart during reentry over Texas 1988

Actually, STS-27 landed at Edwards, so it would break up over a remote part of the Pacific Ocean. There probably won't be any film or video from ground observers ; there may not even be visual sightings.

In December 1988, there was no TDRS coverage over the Pacific (TDRS 3 had been launched earlier that year but wasn't operational yet), so there won't be any telemetry from Atlantis during the reentry blackout either.

So: unless/until the Navy locates the remains (under 2 or 3 miles of seawater), all NASA will likely know is that Atlantis vanished without a trace. Spooky...

Hmm, and this was a classified mission (they deployed a Lacross spysat). Could lead to suspicion that the Soviets shot it down...
 
Actually, STS-27 landed at Edwards, so it would break up over a remote part of the Pacific Ocean. There probably won't be any film or video from ground observers ; there may not even be visual sightings.

In December 1988, there was no TDRS coverage over the Pacific (TDRS 3 had been launched earlier that year but wasn't operational yet), so there won't be any telemetry from Atlantis during the reentry blackout either.

So: unless/until the Navy locates the remains (under 2 or 3 miles of seawater), all NASA will likely know is that Atlantis vanished without a trace. Spooky...

Hmm, and this was a classified mission (they deployed a Lacross spysat). Could lead to suspicion that the Soviets shot it down...

That would make life 'interesting'.......
 

Archibald

Banned
Losing another shuttle after Challenger and before the switch to the ISS (1993) would probably send NASA toward THIS
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/hl20.htm

A "pocket shuttle" launched atop a Titan IV. Better to use the Titan IVB, with the brand new USRM boosters.
This was langley entry. Johnson prefered a biconic with parafoil (not bad either)

A bigger variant was also studied
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/hl42.htm

I really like it, even if lifting bodies are trickier to land (high landing speed... remember "the six billion dollar man" opening :D ?)
 

Archibald

Banned
You can probably base a big Shuttle disaster alt-history on this
http://space.co.uk/Features/Newslet...htsoftheDeathStarPage1/tabid/628/Default.aspx

A Shuttle with a Centaur in the payload bay.

Just supose that Thiokol Roger Boisjoly managed to postpone Challenger launch to a warmer day.
You save the crew, but wreck further NASA launch schedule. In may come the Centaurs launches; in July, Vandenberg AFB pad go into service, with the hill surrounding the pad reflecting noise of the boosters at launch.

Now the Shuttle is due to imminent disaster, particularly since it carry the Centaur.

Some ways of turning a Shuttle-centaur launch into a real disaster

- Challenger again. Boisjoly feared an explosion on the pad...

January 27 1987. Twenty years after Apollo 1.

Another Shuttle is on the pad, on a morning as cold as January 28 1986, or January 24 1985 (when Discovery barely escaped disaster, leading Thiokol toward O-ring erosion problems).

Same scenario as Challenger OTL, with two main differences
- A Centaur on the payload bay
- the Shuttle explodes on the pad.
Quite paradoxically crew has better chance to survive to a blast on the pad.
But LC-39 is totally destroyed...

Other scenario : OMS pods or APU catch fire at landing and trigger explosion of LH2 boilf-off from the Centaur.
 
Two Challenger/Columbia accidents so close will kill the orbitter part of the STS but will there still be the will to develop a new launcher using the external tank and SRB's as the official NASA Ares programme or the unofficial Drect/Jupiter alternative.

http://www.directlauncher.com/

Or will the next man-rated launcher come form one of the other designs?
 
Although this isn't exactly in line with what we are talking about, but what about the STS-41 G mission?

In particular:

In response to the American Strategic Defence Initiative and continued military use of the shuttle, the Soviet Union fired a 'warning shot' from the Terra-3 laser complex at Sary Shagan. The facility tracked Challenger with a low power laser on 10 October 1984. This caused malfunctions to on-board equipment and discomfort / temporary blinding of the crew, leading to a US diplomatic protest.

Suppose the laser actually destroyed the shuttle systems to a point the life support systems failed, or the navigation systems and the crew perished?
 
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